Just time for a very quick post regarding the court case I mentioned last week initiated by Christian Ott.
You will recall that Christian Ott resigned from a position at Caltech in 2016 after being found guilty of gender-based harassment against two graduate students, I wrote about this case and some of the issues it raised here. Little information about the case was divulged publicly by Caltech at the time.
After leaving Caltech, Ott was offered a position at the University of Turku in Finland but that offer was rescinded after protests about this apparent case of “passing the harasser”. Syksy Räsänen and Till Sawala initiated an open letter that was signed by a large number of academics calling for Ott’s appointment to be cancelled. Syksy blogged about the case here (in Finnish; scroll down to see the English translation). Ott now works as a software consultant.
Not being at all knowledgeable about Finnish law, I wasn’t sure of the legal basis on which Ott’s case was being pursued but it seemed to involve an accusation of “aggravated defamation”; the second charge was “aggravated dissemination of information that violates privacy”.
Anyway, the relevant court issued its judgment today. The charges against Räsänen and Sawala were dismissed.I am delighted and relieved by this news. The only coverage I have seen so far is in Finnish – see here for example – but I’ll update with more when it becomes available.
Here is the text of a press release from Syksy Räsänen and Till Sawala about the verdict.
Two astrophysicists win defamation trial after calling out harassment
Two astrophysicists at the University of Helsinki, Finland, were today acquitted of “aggravated defamation” and “aggravated dissemination of information that violates privacy” in the district court of Southwest Finland in Turku [1]. They had spoken out when Christian Ott, an astrophysicist previously suspended due to harassment, was hired at the University of Turku. The prosecutor had demanded suspended prison sentences or substantial fines, while Ott demanded €60,000.
“I am relieved that our right to speak out was affirmed today, but I remain concerned how people in positions of power downplayed harassment in this case. The issue is harassment, not the fact that people are finally talking about it”, says Till Sawala, one of the defendants. “Too much attention has been paid to protecting the reputation of institutions or the perpetrators of harassment. Our attention should be on the rights of the victims and on creating a community where everyone can feel safe.”
“I welcome the acquittal after over three years of process. I hope this case will set a precedent”, comments Syksy Räsänen, the other defendant. “No one should have to fear fines or a prison sentence for simply speaking out against harassment based on widely and reliably reported facts. The threat alone can have a chilling effect that can set back work against harassment. We had the financial resources, and support from our scientific community, to contest the baseless charges against us. If someone in a less secure position, such as a PhD student, were to be put in this situation, they might not fare so well.”
In 2015, an investigation at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) had found that Ott had committed “unambiguous gender-based harassment” of two graduate students. The case received international media attention [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Ott had been placed on unpaid leave for nine months and his suspension was extended after he breached its terms. During the Turku trial, it was revealed that Ott received his full salary of over $200,000 from Caltech in 2017.
Following Ott’s resignation at the end of 2017, in January 2018, it emerged that Ott was due to be hired at the University of Turku [7]. Just prior to this, Ott had been offered a job at the University of Stockholm, but the offer was withdrawn after staff protests. Alexandra Veledina, who had recruited Ott to Stockholm, also works in the group of Juri Poutanen, the director of the observatory in Turku.
Räsänen and Sawala wrote a letter to the University of Turku leadership expressing their concern over the appointment. Räsänen and Sawala also published a statement against harassment in astronomy, which was signed by the majority of Finnish astronomers [8]. Referring to the response of the scientific community, the University of Turku cancelled the appointment [9].
Juri Poutanen acted as a witness for the prosecution in the trial. In emails shown in court, he had told Räsänen: “In my view there is no evidence” that Ott harassed anyone. When presented with Caltech’s findings in court, he responded that ”it really makes no difference what happened at Caltech“.
Poutanen also commented that only one of his staff had expressed concerns to him. Documents and testimony in court showed that several other astronomers at the University of Turku had reported their concerns to the rector, the university leadership, and to their trade union. The staff member who had spoken to Poutanen became the subject of a police investigation after Ott filed a criminal complaint, alleging they spoke to the press about the matter. They were ultimately not charged.
The prosecutor claimed that Sawala and Räsänen’s statements about Ott’s conduct violated privacy, in part because Caltech is a private institution. The prosecutor also alleged that the defendants’ writings were defamatory, arguing that being guilty of harassment implies being guilty of a crime, of which Ott has never been charged. The prosecutor also argued that because Ott’s actions had not involved physical contact, they did not constitute sexual harassment. Ott’s lawyers claimed that the defendants had repeated false claims from a “gossip website”.
Räsänen and Sawala argued that they were speaking about a matter of professional concern in their own scientific field, a protected category of speech under Finnish defamation law [10]. They also argued that the facts of the case were widely known and reported by many credible sources, including Caltech’s own public statements and the world’s premier scientific journals.
The court concluded that Räsänen and Sawala had spoken about a matter of public interest, based their statements on credible sources, and had at least not knowingly disseminated information they didn’t have good reason to consider true. As such, the violation of privacy and defamation charges were both dismissed.
As grounds for the financial compensation, Ott had stated that the sum of €50,000 was a “token”, intended “to hurt, but not bankrupt the respondents”. He asked for a further €10,000 in damages. Both claims were dismissed along with the criminal charges. Ott also appeared to dispute the findings of Caltech’s investigation, calling it a “kangaroo court”. According to Ott, the investigation started after “an activist got involved and urged the student to file a complaint”. Caltech has stood by its process and findings. A 2019 investigation by NASA and the National Science Foundation found that Caltech followed the appropriate procedures in its Title IX investigation [11].
Links
Blog entries on the case by Syksy Räsänen
https://www.ursa.fi/blogi/kosmokseen-kirjoitettua/myos-me-kierros-3-we-too-round-3/
https://www.ursa.fi/blogi/kosmokseen-kirjoitettua/myos-me-taas-we-too-again/
https://www.ursa.fi/blogi/kosmokseen-kirjoitettua/myos-meus-too/
Sources referenced in the text
[1] Verdict (in Finnish): https://telescoper.blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/tuomio-r-22-619.pdf
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.19153
[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/529255a
[4] https://www.science.org/content/article/caltech-suspends-professor-harassment
[5] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghorayshi/ott-harassment-investigation
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/01/13/astronomys-snowballing-sexual-harassment-scandal-picks-up-even-more-cases/
[7] https://www.utu.fi/en/news/news/recruitment-of-christian-ott-to-the-university-of-turku
[8] https://blogs.helsinki.fi/sawala/statement-by-finnish-astronomers-and-astrophysicists-on-harassment/
[9] https://www.utu.fi/en/news/news/university-of-turku-cancels-the-employment-contract-of-christian-ott
[10] https://finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1889/en18890039_20150766.pdf
[11] https://www.nsf.gov/od/oecr/reports/Caltech_Title_IX_Report.pdf
In the Dark 